(I am joining in on Kelly’s Korner today. This is a post about a fun, different school day we had. For more on our curriculum, click here. Thank you for visiting!)
Is funnest a word?
Probably not.
Yesterday, we went to town for piano lessons. I was planning on getting right home so we could start some school work (yay). But then, my darling Handsome Dude asked,
“MOOOOOOM! Could you I go to da Wybrary? I want dinosaurs jumping on da bed book!”
And who am I to stifle a young boy’s craving for good literature?
So, to the library we went. And darn our luck, but a story time for 2’s and 3’s was beginning in 15 minutes. And my Handsome Dude noticed this.
Oh, yes. He is getting to the age where he “notices” things. This is discouraging.
So, I set the girls up to explore the children’s library on their own for a bit so I could take my 2 and 3 year olds to the story time.
I used to take the girls to the story time often when they were little. And I remembered something as I sat there with my boys . . .
I hate the story time at the library.
I know. I am sure you are all aghast.
But I hate it. I do. I really do.
Making 20 toddlers/preschoolers sit in a room and listen to four books is torturous for the parents. I also fear it is a place where parents’ can’t help but compare their children to other children.
Oh. Look at that girl. She has sat and quietly listened the whole time. Why can’t my kid do that?
Oh, my. That boy is asking such intelligent questions. My boy is just picking his nose.
Oh, good. That kid is being really naughty. At least my kids aren’t doing THAT.
I will have you know that my boys were not naughty at all. At least, in my opinion. But they were weird and creepy. Handsome Dude refused to look at the librarian and would only sit ON me. Little Dude was trying to snuggle and take a nap. Handsome Dude asked every two minutes if we could leave cause doesn’t like any of this.
So. It wasn’t fun. Surprise.
But then that darn librarian had the audacity to inform the 2 and 3 year olds that they could join her in another room for a craft. And guess whose kids decided that would also be fun?
Handsome Dude always chooses pink. Just an FYI for you. Not that I am concerned. Just informing you.
So. That fun lasted for a total of 45 minutes. And we still hadn’t found the dinosaurs jumping on da bed book.
An hour and a half after we first entered the library, we left. We currently have about 40 items checked out between two cards and none of them are the dinosaurs jumping on da bed book.
And Handsome Dude is letting his displeasure for that fact be known. Often.
So then we were starving and had about a 45 minute drive home. And who can wait that long to eat? Not me. So, we went to Wendy’s. When I brought the tray of food to the table, Handsome Dude shouted for all the world to hear:
“You are da BEST Mom in da whole wibe word!!!!”
Attention parents: Chicken nuggets will redeem you for not being able to fix the fact that the dinosaurs jumping on da bed book has been checked out by another lucky boy.
We got through Wendy’s without any incident and started our journey home.
But then, I got a hankering to go shopping. I have limited options in the Ruralville area. But I have found that if I take a small detour and head west for about 20 minutes, I find a cute, small town with a cute, small shop and a cute, small park.
I got to shop for a bit and the kids were . . . pretty good.
The shop owner lady was super nice and she made all the kids a hot chocolate-for free!
Little Dude can hardly contain his excitement for his warm, chocolatey drink.
The kids wanted to play at the park, even though it was probably about 20 degrees out.
Then, my kids, decided they should gather up all the branches that were lying around and organize them into one, nice pile.
Because everyone knows branches cannot just be littered all over the place.
I wonder who they get that from?
Tis a mystery.
And, just to show you how cold it was-
Here is Sweet Pea on ice.
So, we loaded up into the rig. And I still didn’t want to go home. Do you ever have those days . . . where you just have to do something different?
We took a drive. Our Ruralville house is near the lake, so we went exploring a bit around there.
And we counted 14 deer. Which was fantastically exciting, even for a little boy who was still reminding his mother about his unhappiness over the aforementioned dinosaur jumping on da bed book.
And, as we were driving down our road, we saw 45 turkeys in the field next to us.
And we watched them fly up into their nests! All of them!
Science . . . check.
See? We didn’t completely bail on homeschooling. I figure we got in music (piano), reading/library time, and science. Oh! And PE for the park.
Then we arrived home and the girls had to tend to their TEN rabbits.
Oh! Did I forget to mention that we now own ten rabbits? Silly me.
Ooh! That was more science.
Yes. And soon we will get chickens and goats and probably like milk the goats or something different like that and make our own candles and knit and grow garden-like stuff and can stuff and maybe get a cow named Bessie and I shall wear jumpers every day and gather eggs in my denim dress as I wear birkenstocks and have hair down to my knees that I wear in a super fat braid.
Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that.
And we have 3 boy rabbits and 7 girl rabbits, which will only enhance my up and coming science lecture on How Babies Are Made.
Coming sooner or later. Hopefully later. Much later.
Oh, and after dinner I made a cake.
Dang! I am fantastic.
But I just had to share with you what my husband does to good, decent cake.
Ok-that is a terrible picture. It did look edible when we were photographing it.
Anyways, he takes the cake and he dumps applesauce on it.
Gag me. But what can you expect from a man who enjoys eating elk?
Oh, and it could not be any applesauce. No, dear readers. No. It MUST be the applesauce that we make with the crazykin inlaws. And guess what?
They ALL like to eat their cakes and other baked goods smothered with this applesauce.
THEY.
ARE.
SO.
WEIRD.
Anyways. That was our Tuesday.
Happy Wednesday!
PS-all my pictures were taken with my super cool phone. Look at me with my big-girl-uploading-photos-from-her-phone-to-her-blog-pants on!
Don’t pretend you aren’t impressed.
Sounds like you also got your math in there. Counting all those varmints.
You are an awesome homeschooling mom!!! Holla!
Applesauce on cake. That is a million different kinds of wrong. 😛
All cake? Really? I can see how maybe a spice cake would be okay with applesauce on it but anything else…no. That’s not right.
Sounds like a great day to me. I have no little ones at home yet I am still stuck inside thanks to the lovely weather. Second day in a row. The ice is unbelievable today. And that means hubs is working from home. (Second day in a row for that too!) At the kitchen island. Right in the center of my space. It’s similar to having kids underfoot. Just sayin’
Sounds like a great day, aside from the applesauce covered cake.
So glad to see I’m not the only Mom in the universe who did NOT enjoy storytime at the library – and for the exact same reasons!
That’s why I don’t homeschool. Because, for me, that would be the most productive day of the week school wise. A normal day would involve activities like “Find The Mommy” and “Watch The TV.”
You are awesome.
Stupid iPad trend me into “kneed”. Is that even a word?
Hahahaha!! Oh this made me giggle because of the auto correct correction in your correction of auto correct’s correction! Hahahaha!!
I personally don’t enjoy library storytime either, sister. And now I don’t have to feel so much shame.
My MIL, on the other hand, could marry it. She loves to take my two youngest (separately), and she’s dying to come over and watch the other kids so that I can go and experience the “extended” version. Truly, I think it should be a special Grammy event. But I feel like a terrible Mommy for saying that, so I just keep avoiding it!
My inlaws have a large Dairy farm, (from which we live 0.7 miles away ) and their entire family, too, has a weird way they eat cake (or pie, or cobbler, etc.) They put it in a bowl and pour fresh (raw) milk over it until it’s completely unrecogonizable and a soggy mess! And eat it with a spoon. Like cereal. Ugh. It’s bizarre what some people will do to a perfecty good dessert!
OK. I live on a dairy farm, and the idea of raw milk (or pasteurized for that matter) over anything makes me want to gag. But I remember my mom used to like doing that to cornbread; just a bowl of cornbread drowned in milk, with maybe some sugar added.
Sounds like my kind of homeschooling day! I just wish we lived near you because then maybe we could go outside without freezing our tushies off- literally! It was like -15 this morning. So my poor kids are stuck working in the dreaded books! Although my 7 yr old did shovel through vasts amount of snow yesterday just so he could try ( unsuccessfully) to ride his bike in our winter nightmare land of Minnesota! This is getting to be a long comment but just one more thing- we are now using wood stove to heat our house and I think about you guys evertime I go outside to haul in another load of wood. I even went out yesterday and split some wood with an ax! So proud of myself! I thought- I bet Taylor does this too:)
It is awesome to see your kids put their dad’s chores into action! Gathering sticks!!!! Sounds like you had a great day! And about the milk on dessert comment–it sounds great to me! 🙂
I am so with you on the library reading hour thing. Ugh.
Sounds like the perfect day! Days like that are so wonderful when I can let go of my inhibitions about what I think we “need” to get done in a day, and instead go with what happens and what we want to do.
You should see if you can find that book on Amazon.com for cheap. A lot of times you can buy the used books and just pay book rate shipping–I’ve spent less than three dollars on cookbooks before–takes three weeks or so to get them, but who cares. It’s cheap.
I got told by my 4 year today that I’m the best mommy ever for helping him button his pants. I will have to get him chicken nuggets and see if I get the same response.
I must admit that story time at the Library was not my favorite time either. My Little Guy and I sat in the doorway for the first couple of weeks as we weren’t sure if we actually wanted to go in. Then once we made it in (as they told us they needed to start closing the door), we sat right next to the door with him on my lap. Good times, good times.
Wow – that was some day you had! Actually the best part is that you were building memories with your chillins – you can’t replace that with sitting in a classroom (although I realize you gotta do some of that too). Kudos Taylor – kudos!
As I sit here in the aftermath of Snowpocalypse 2011, having a Snow Day, I realize just how fortunate that I am that I don’t homeschool. I’m sorry to rub it in. Really. It’s just that the boys keep antagonizing each other, and as much as I’d like to do cool things all day, I don’t think I could take. I officially award you a gold star for surviving all day everyday with your kids. As much as we love them, breaks are nice!
I second the gold star award; you are an awesome mommy. I know I won’t have the patience to homeschool my daughter. And I certainly do not have the patience to sit through story hour. I enjoy doing the reading to her myself.
And just a sidenote; I can tell you are not in the midwest. Here in the midwest a “branch” is a flowing body of water. A “limb” is something that falls from a tree. After 6 years here I still can’t get that one right. 🙂
wow. Ice.
I thought I almost froze to death when I took the kids to the park on Monday. It was 45 degrees outside.
I couldn’t feel my fingers.
Also, applesauce on cake? He needs to go to rehab, that’s just wrong and unhealthy.
by “Unhealthy” I mean, “mentally unhealthy”…I’m sure applesauce has some sort of health benefit.
Maybe you should just start making cakes with applesauce instead of butter, then you will lose weight and he will have his weird food problems answered.
My husband is obsessed with ketchup, and BBQ sauce and all other sauces, but I’ve never seen him dump said sauces on cake.
Can’t wait to see you in your denim jumper with hair on your knees.. I mean down to your knees…. what will you buy with your egg money? 🙂
I hated taking my kids to story time at the library too. We are not bad mothers. 😉 I fear your science project re rabbits may get slightly out of hand. 🙂
Holla!
I don’t know about funnest…I think you should have your girls look up “fun” in the dictionary, and you then you can conjugate it, and then you will have completed grammar!
It looks like someone threw up on his cake. I even gagged a little. Well, whatever whacks your cracker, I guess.
Glad you had a good day, lady!!
Umm – I know that some people eat applesauce with spice cake but had no idea there were those who went beyond that. Go figure. Looks like a fabulous school day to me!
Is it some sort of apple cake? That just looks gross! Oh, and congratulations for getting all the school subjects accomplished in one day AND getting to shop!
What a fun day! Hopefully it will warm up soon, groundhog says! 🙂 At these colds temps to I will believe it when i see it! Come on sun! Happy Wednesday 🙂
We all have days like that.
And the picture of cake freaks me out a bit.
Sounds to be like you covered all the basics of homeschooling. And you are the best mom in the whole wibe world, so you can’t go wrong.
Next time LJ throws applesauce on his cake, throw a few huckleberries on yours. : ) By the way, does he know how much we’re all making fun of him?
Taylor- I will personally purchase your first jean jumper, if you promise to wear it! Then I can bring my kids to your farm and you can be the nice, abeit weird farm lady. Side note: We once had breeding rabbits- not good, so not good. They are born without fur and very small, ours fell through the cracks in our cage and the dog got them. Yuck! We are not reliable pet owners. No, we are not.
Oh…we were just one day apart, my friend. I was the places you were the day before–hope you had a wonderful time and enjoyed something yummy to drink. And I will NOT let you dress in a demin jumper, wear birks, and grow your hair that long. Nope. Won’t do it. Buuuuuuttttt, I’ve said that before. 🙂
I have to tell you that I read this: “and can stuff and maybe get a cow named Bessie ” as though you could stuff a cow…I thought for a minute about why you would stuff it before you got it. I’m a smart cookie. I am.
For the record, I hated story time too. In fact, I only made it to one. Actually, I only made it to 1/4 of one. A friend had taken me with her (I was new to the big ole city of Miami), and she had TWINS who sat very quietly. Bah.
Regarding Little Dude’s smile…I think he gets that from his father.
Good for you for being flexible with your schedule. Always a challenge for me. And the library? The kids will remember it forever. Hang in there 🙂
bless lumberjack’s heart…he just can’t help himself, can he? He is a product of his past environment. I agree with you though, applesauce on dang good cake is a travesty!
Goodness.
That wore me out just reading it. How did you not just collapse? Phew!
You are a super mom!!!
Wattsa matta wit’ Birkenstocks?
Everyone made fun of me for wearing them at my wedding. But they were under a long dress – not even visible. And who was complaining about how their feet hurt? Hmmm? NOT ME!
No, I’m not still bitter. Why would you ask?
Oh my goodness, applesauce on cake? GROADY.
Totally broke down our local organic food co-op order with a homeschooling, jean jumper wearing, fat hair braided, nursed-her-kid-till-it-was-5 years-old -lady the other day. Nothing wrong with that, no way. Except for the nursed-her-kid-till-it-was-five part…
On that note, I do want a milk goat. So bad.
Thank you for making me laugh so hard! I agree with you about the library time, but the funniest was the applesauce on the cake & the comments about your in-laws.